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Manawatū-Whanganui Councils data via eolas

The Manawatū-Whanganui region covers ~260,000 people across Horizons Regional Council and seven territorial authorities — Horowhenua, Manawatū, Palmerston North, Rangitīkei, Ruapehu, Tararua, and Whanganui. eolas serves 46 datasets with broad coverage of river-flood hazards (Manawatū River + tributaries), cultural sites, and the Ruapehu volcanic context.

If you're doing central-North-Island planning, agricultural / horticultural research, or volcanic + flood-hazard work — this is the source.

What's in the catalogue

Council Code Datasets Highlights
Horowhenua District (HoroW) horow 11 DP zones, coastal/flood hazards, landscape, ONFL
Rangitīkei District rdc 10 DP layers + Rangitīkei river flood + heritage
Horizons RC horizons 8 Airsheds, groundwater/water mgmt areas, sites of cultural significance, SOS aquatic+riparian
Tararua District tararua 8 District plan zones + heritage + hazards
Palmerston North City Council (PNCC) pncc 6 City DP zones + flood + earthquake-prone buildings
Manawatū District (MDC, central) mdc 3 Limited (basic DP layers)

Standout datasets

  • horizons_airshed_taihape, horizons_airshed_taumarunui — modelled airsheds for inland centres (relevant for industrial / domestic-fire consenting)
  • horizons_groundwater_mgmt_area — Manawatū basin groundwater zones (irrigation + drinking water context)
  • horizons_floodways_flood_prone_land — regional flood hazard envelope
  • horizons_sites_significance_cultural — iwi-consented site polygons
  • horow_dp_coastal_hazard — Horowhenua's coast (Levin–Foxton–Hokio Beach line)

Browse the full list: eolas.fyi/datasets?source=Manawat%C5%AB-Whanganui+Councils.

Refresh schedule

Weekly, Wednesday morning NZ time. Horizons publishes via its own ArcGIS portal; TAs use a mix of ArcGIS + Koordinates portals.

meta = client.info("horizons_groundwater_mgmt_area")
meta["last_refreshed_at"]

License

All Manawatū-Whanganui council data is CC-BY 4.0. Commercial use fine; per-council attribution required.

Common patterns

River-flood exposure for a property

import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import Point

pt = gpd.GeoSeries([Point(175.6113, -40.3523)], crs="EPSG:4326")  # central Palmerston North
floodways = client.manawatu_whanganui("horizons_floodways_flood_prone_land", as_sf=True)
hit = gpd.sjoin(pt.to_frame("g").set_geometry("g"), floodways, predicate="within")
print(f"In flood-prone land: {'YES' if len(hit) else 'no'}")

Groundwater management context

gw = client.manawatu_whanganui("horizons_groundwater_mgmt_area", as_sf=True)
print(gw.groupby("mgmt_unit").size())  # zones by management category

Source-specific notes

  • Ruapehu District includes Mt Ruapehu: active volcano + ski areas — volcanic-hazard layers from GeoNet (separate source) + DOC conservation land overlay are relevant for tourism / consenting in this area.
  • Manawatū River flood history: the 2004 + 2015 floods drive much of the current flood mapping. horizons_floodways_flood_prone_land is the regulatory hazard layer; for historic events use council records.
  • Whanganui District is split: most Whanganui council data lives in the Napier + Whanganui cluster (because both publish via the WhanganuiData portal), not this cluster.
  • Iwi cultural sites: horizons_sites_significance_cultural has iwi-agreed publication boundaries. Treat as authoritative for the geometry but check the source metadata for any access restrictions.

Where to find more